Memory and cognitive disorders are associated with abnormal dendritic spines and/or disturbances to signaling regulating the spine actin cytoskeleton. Complementary results show that long-term potentiation (LTP), a form of synaptic plasticity thought to underlie memory encoding, requires spine actin remodeling. These observations suggest the hypothesis that defects in the cytoskeletal mechanisms of LTP consolidation represent a shared neurobiological basis for memory disturbances, and a therapeutic target for improving cognitive performance, in a variety of conditions. The present proposal for renewal of #P01NS045260 funding, addresses this hypothesis. Program studies have shown that LTP stabilization is impaired in rodent models of six different types of memory disorder: middle-aging, early-stage Huntington's Disease (HD), Fragile-X Syndrome (FXS), Angelman Syndrome, short-term stress, and low estrogen levels. In each instance thus far tested, LTP-related reorganization of the spine cytoskeleton was defective and infusions and/or upregulating Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor (BDNF) rescued LTP and cytoskeletal changes. Moreover, activity-driven actin remodeling was shown to involve distinct cascades mediating spine F-actin assembly and stabilization, that are differentially impaired across the animal models, but both facilitated by BDNF. The proposed studies build on these findings to: i) identify defects in activity-driven signaling to actin, associated with LTP, in seven distinctly different rodent models of memory impairment; ii) determine if behaviorally induced actin signaling and learning is impaired in the rodent models; iii) test if chronic up-regulation of BDNF protein content increases signaling through BDNF's TrkB receptor and actin regulatory cascades as assessed in vitro and in vivo; and iv) test the prediction that the latter effects are accompanied by a reduction in behavioral abnormalities in each of the rodent models. There will be four Projects, directed by different PIs: each with its own rodent models and with different aspects of cytoskeletal signaling as a focus. Core A will provide analytical facilities for microscopy, electrophysiology, behavioral studies, and select neurochemical assays employed by all projects, and will support Administrative and Animal/Reagent functions. In all, the proposed studies are expected to test for the presence of a final, common defect in memory disorders and to thoroughly evaluate a clinically relevant strategy for normalizing synaptic plasticity and behavior.